Why old 'friends' Munster and Leinster should always meet up over Christmas
O'connell O'driscoll In December And Rivals: Brian Their Irish 2006 Paul Legends 27th, (leinster) (munster) Meeting
ODD how an idea can form and stick regardless of fact. It feels now as if the Munster-Leinster Christmas meeting in Thomond Park has been a staple of the holiday period for years.
As synonymous with the season as the last-minute dash for Cranberry sauce and hideous jumpers.
These old friends have met 27 times on Munster soil since professionalism announced itself. Only nine of those have actually been played out over Christmas: a number that stretches to 10 if we include the New Year’s Day clash in Cork 19 years ago when the home team claimed a four-point win.
This ‘tradition’ has, in truth, never really had the chance to take firm hold.
February aside, Munster and Leinster have met down south every month between August and April since 1996. The games in the mid-90s took in the Mardyke, Dooradoyle and Temple Hill.
What is now Virgin Media Park provided the backdrop as recently as 2007 before demand eventually left Limerick as the default venue.
The first ‘Christmas derby’ of modern times only took place eleven months earlier when the old Thomond Park was packed to the gills with 13,200 souls in attendance. Declan Kidney’s men recorded a 25-11 win halfway through a campaign that would end with a first Heineken Cup for the province.
Another eight years would pass – with Connacht the traditional visitors to Limerick in the meantime - before someone returned to the idea that maybe the Irish game’s biggest rivalry might work well at a time of year when everyone was desperate for a ‘big’ game on their own doorstep.
Six successive years of Christmas meetings followed from that before it was again interrupted, this time by Covid and a fixture list that transferred it to the outlands of late January and then April, but this is the third straight year in which it is back in what surely has to be its rightful place.
URC fixture planners please take note.
The original of the species. A Leinster side boosted by a big win in Agen and a draw in Ravenhill rocked up to Limerick with a frightfully young Johnny Sexton and took a one-point lead into half-time after sinbins for Keith Gleeson and Frankie Sheehan.
They didn’t score again. Munster’s grizzled pack took over on the restart and Ronan O’Gara piped in with 20 points on the day. The Munster website said that 'a Leinster visit to the Munster half was as rare as a taxi at rush hour after the interval. Ooof.
Munster hadn’t lost at Thomond Park since February by the time Leinster pitched up on St Stephen’s Day, but the visitors led 27-5 at the break having sprinted out to a 13-0 lead after just 13 minutes of play.
Leinster had three tries in the bag after just 24 minutes but were then made to sweat after the break when Munster launched a convincing comeback that was only stopped in its tracks by a blistering, mazy try by a young whippersnapper named Jordan Larmour.
Rugby can be beautiful in a myriad of ways and there’s not many more appealing prospects than a tetchy interpro between the men in red and blue. This one had that in spades as the hosts ended Leinster’s seven-game unbeaten streak.
Leinster played for over an hour with a man down after James Lowe was sent to the line for a dangerous challenge on a leaping Andrew Conway. And they had Cian Healy and Tadhg Furling sinbinned in the first half-hour so as well.
Sexton was central to the panto element with the Ireland out-half getting involved with Fineen Wycherley at one point and flinging Joey Carbery to the ground at another. A high tackle by Scott Fardy prompted a melee at another stage. Juicy.
After two seasons where this game had been sent to the Siberia that was late January and then April, someone in the league offices copped on and decided that maybe this should be slotted in to a gift-wrapped St Stephen’s Day slot.
The atmosphere in Thomond for this one was only intensified further for the fact that it was the first one in Limerick since the pandemic and the sides served up an appropriate fare with a Gavin Coombes try leaving Munster 7-6 in front at the half.
Tries from Scott Penny and Dan Sheehan put Leinster in prime position with a belated response in the form of a penalty try and a Patrick Campbell touch down setting up a tense ending, but Leinster made it a perfect ten games unbeaten to stay top of the pile.